


No Taste for Plums

by RileyC



Category: NCIS
Genre: Angst, Established Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-15
Updated: 2010-09-15
Packaged: 2017-10-11 20:53:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/117002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RileyC/pseuds/RileyC
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's been an incident, and Gibbs was hurt; Ducky's keeping vigil and passing the time reading aloud.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Taste for Plums

**Author's Note:**

> The novel Ducky's reading is _Lost Horizon_ by James Hilton.
> 
> This title is not, to my knowledge, among the many audio books Dsvid McCallum has done, but Fanfromfla's generosity in sharing many of those with me is surely one inspiration for this fic.

_Conway was thirty-seven, He had been at Raskul for two years, in a job which now, in the light of events, could be regarded as a persistent backing of the wrong horse. A stage of his life was finished; in a few weeks' time, or perhaps after a few months' leave in England, he would be sent somewhere else. Tokyo or Teheran, Manila or Muscat; people in his profession never knew what was coming. He had been ten years in the Consular Service, long enough to assess his own chances as shrewdly as he was apt to do those of others. He knew that the plums were not for him, but it was genuinely consoling, and not merely sour grapes, to reflect that he had no taste for plums. He preferred the less formal and more picturesque jobs that were on offer, and as these often were not good ones, it had doubtless seemed to others that he was playing his cards rather badly. Actually, he felt he had played them rather well; he had had a varied and moderately enjoyable decade._

Pausing, Ducky marked his place and looked up. Had there been a sound? He thought there had, just the faintest change in breathing, but as he examined Jethro's recumbent form there was no discernible change.

He sighed, adjusted his glasses and resumed reading, as much to keep himself distracted as in the hope the sound of his voice could reach Jethro.

Tempting to imagine Jethro spirited away to a place as idyllic as Shangri-La. A hidden pocket of the planet where disgruntled former employees didn't walk into a coffee shop and open fire, killing and wounding complete strangers right alongside the people they had worked with for years.

Ducky sighed again, losing his place, Ziva's matter-of-fact account of events far too vivid in his mind.

It hadn't even been an NCIS case. Jethro and Ziva had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time, and part of Ducky hated minding that. The carnage would have been so much higher if they hadn't been there, after all. The two young women Jethro had saved by getting between them and the gunman certainly had only the highest praise and gratitude for his selfless heroics - and shocked admiration for the way Ziva had taken down the gunman.

As it was, there were nine dead, including the gunman, and four more gravely wounded - including Jethro.

Gravely wounded, Ducky kept telling himself, offered a spark of hope.

He needed that trembling spark rather badly just at the moment.

So, yes, a sojourn in Shangri-La held a definite appeal. He even believed Jethro could be susceptible to its allure - for a time. Mexico had been something like that, Ducky suspected. Would that ever be sufficient, though?

He tried picturing himself enjoying such an indefinite interval, and couldn't quite do it. A holiday, yes, but to walk away and never look back? No, Ducky couldn't see himself doing that. How much more unlikely was it for Jethro to find contentment that way?

Heaving another quiet sigh, he settled back in the chair drawn up to Jethro's beside, found his place once more, and resumed reading.

 _Conway was far less certain that he was a very brave man. He had closed his eyes in sheer physical fatigue, but without actually sleeping. He could hear and feel every movement of the plane, and he heard also, with mixed feelings, Mallinson's eulogy of himself. It was then that he had his doubts, recognizing a tight sensation in his stomach which was his own bodily reaction to a disquieting mental survey. He was not, as he knew well from experience, one of those persons who love danger for its own sake. There was an aspect of it which he sometimes enjoyed, an excitement, a purgative effect upon sluggish emotions..._

~*~

"Why'd you stop reading?"

Ducky blinked, bleary-eyed, and sat up straighter. Had he been dreaming? It wouldn't be the first time.

But no, as he peered more closely at Jethro that faintly glowing ember of hope flared dramatically. Jethro was looking back at him, eyes heavy-lidded, the faintest of smiles touching the corners of his mouth.

"Awake at last," he murmured, blinking his own eyes a bit rapidly and patting Jethro's hand.

Alertness growing more focused by the moment, Jethro's first question was, naturally, "How's Ziva?"

"Rather more emotionally shaken than she cares to admit, but otherwise quite well," Ducky said, filling in the other blanks as Jethro raised them.

"DiNozzo taking care of things?"

"Anthony is doing a commendable job in your _temporary_ absence." Ducky stressed the word only very lightly, just enough to convey to Jethro the assurance that his recovery would be complete. He could see the understanding hit home and take root in the way a miniscule suggestion of tension eased out of Jethro's body.

Responding with a faint snort of laughter, Jethro asked, "Vance agree with that assessment?"

"Very likely not, but as the parlance has it, what he doesn't know won't hurt him."

Jethro nodded against the pillow, looking tired. " _Lost Horizon_?" he said, indicating the book Ducky had set on the bed. "Trying to tell me something, Duck?"

"Merely revisiting a favorite novel." Settling back in his chair, Ducky picked the book up again, leafing through it to where he'd left off to rest his eyes a moment. "However, now you mention it, there are one or two aspects to Conway that remind me of you."

Looking dubious of that comparison, Jethro said, "Wasn't he the one everyone built up as some kind of ideal hero and he was tired of having to live up to it?"

"Something like, yes."

"Yeah, well," Jethro sighed, closing his eyes. "there's one big difference."

"And what is that, if I might ask?"

Jethro opened his eyes, looked at him with that inscrutable smile again. "I don't need to go all the way to Tibet to find my Shangri-La."

Unaccountably pleased at that declaration, Ducky nodded. "I'm very glad to hear it," he said, and having found his place again began to read, carrying on even when Jethro had drifted off into a normal, healing sleep.

 _Part of Conway was always an onlooker, however active might be the rest. Just now, while waiting for the strangers to come nearer, he refused to be fussed into deciding what he might or mightn't do in any number of possible contingencies. And this was not bravery, or coolness, or any especially sublime confidence in his own power to make decisions on the spur of the moment..._


End file.
